noah got a new belt!

yesterday noah had his first test in martial arts

to see if he was ready to move up

he did great

and today he got his new belt

he is super excited if you can't tell

and we are so proud of him! 

he loves martial arts and he has done so well in it

i love that he is learning more control over his body and self defense

good job, noah!

from the phone: the last few days

olive finally decided to go to tap class again

after a long hiatus caused by falling down the stairs on her way to class a couple months ago

i rewarded her with ice cream 

 we went out to dinner to the art city trolley a couple nights ago

that place is so delicious! 

i love all these kids even if it makes going out to eat a little crazy

 michael took friday off to celebrate the end of the semester

and we went to slc 

here are us girls trying on sunglasses at nordstrom

notice olive isn't wearing shoes...

 out to lunch

michael is such a cute walrus

 noah and hazel got to go to a fun birthday party

hazel looked so cute with her face painted

 we also went to the ward fiesta

here's michael hitting the pinata

 here's a picture from our trip to the zoo

i love that after 5 years our stroller is still going strong

and occasionally holds three of our kids at a time

 today at church eleanor was being so grumpy

so we were walking the halls

and when she spotted michael sitting in his class in primary

she had to go say hi :) 

 after church today the kids made us a fiesta outside

we all sat under the decorated trampoline 

and colored

and a few more things i don't want to forget:

noah has got 100% on almost every spelling test this year

olive is completely potty trained, even at night

eleanor started walking this last week
she's not a fluent walker but she's taking steps
hazel taught herself how to whistle this week

a day at the zoo

Michael and I started our day by going on a 10 mile run in preparation for our half marathon next week.  

(Thank you to our friend Kristin for watching our kiddies!)
This was our first time running together, ever! It was so much fun. We were nervous about our pacing and whether we'd enjoy talking or not but it was great. It was so nice to have time together and it's been really fun sharing this goal with one another. When we got home and showered, we decided to go out on an adventure. We weren't sure where we would go, but we headed toward Salt Lake anyway. We stopped at Chipotle for lunch, of course. Then we decided to go to the zoo for our first time in years and our first time in Utah. We had so much fun! We ended our day with a trip to Trader Joes. I was so excited, I've been out of hummus forever! It was a really nice Saturday.

in a good place

i love nothing more than feeling like i have a handle on motherhood

i love it

i currently have a seven, four, two and one year old

 it's awesome

i love that eleanor and olive are close in age

and becoming best friends

i love that i'm not pregnant and we don't have a baby

there are messes and busy schedules

martial arts, ballet, preschool, etc

and even if it only lasts a week, i love having a handle on things

we're in a good place

dinners are made, schedules are kept, kids play happily

and i am happy

oh yeah, and it doesn't hurt that i'm finally getting a little closer to pre-baby shape!

our weekend

this weekend we mostly stayed home

saturday morning michael and i each ran 9 miles

 in preparation for our half marathon in a couple of weeks

then we sat around trying to recover from doing so for the rest of the day

sunday we went to church

and afterward we spent most of the day outside

having lots of water fights, jumping on the trampoline

and playing badminton 

we took these pictures on the trampoline

i love my babies

lately

eleanor is just so cute

 olive has started letting me do her hair more

she says it's beautiful

 noah was so excited to get his black stripe at martial arts

hazel and olive think it's so fun to jump like maniacs off the furniture and stairs

 eleanor looks so old while she plays with the kitchen

we took noah birthday cupcakes to school and he loved it

silly upside down hazel